Double standard.

Now it's time to focus on laSexta Noticias again.

On Friday, June 4, 2010, at the night edition, they reported about the three Spanish activists who were on board the Mavi Marmara, so their witness accounts could be heard again. This was the fourth report by laSexta Noticias that night, preceded by another one about... a simulated boarding performed by the G.A.R. (Grupo de Acción Rápida or Rapid Action Group), an elite unit inside the Civil Guard, a Spanish military corps with police functions (thus comparable with the French National Gendarmerie).

During the report, all kind of dificulties which can be encountered by a civil or military unit during a boarding were cited, such as: the helicopter pilot has to maintain it above the ship in order to make sure that those who are performing the boarding abseil onto the deck of the ship itself and not onto the water; maybe the boarding happens at night, when the visibility is severely reduced; or that the possibility of encountering violent opposition does exist, and in such a case, the officers who are boarding the ship could respond through using their firearms.

So, for laSexta Noticias, a boarding performed by armed officers and the use of their firearms when necessary are licit actions when fighting against E.T.A., a terrorist organization; but when it's about the Tzahal boarding the Mavi Marmara in order to enforce a blockade which is justified due to the military necessities of a country literally at war, the boarding is a wrongful act, as the use of firearms itself, in spite of the fact that the Israeli soldiers encountered a violent opposition during night time by members of the I.H.H., a Turkish organization linked to terrorist activities, according to the Danish Institute for International Studies and the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

One more time has been demonstrated that, for laSexta Noticias, Israel hasn't enjoy presumption of innocence, while it seems they think that the fight against anti-Israeli terrorism is not as legitimate as the fight against E.T.A. (which is, by the way, a pro-Palestinian organization).

Anti-Semitic McCarthyism in Spain.

The Spanish F.E.L.G.T.B. (Federación Estatal de Lesbianas, Gays, Transexuales y Bisexuales or State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals) has decided to veto the participation of Israeli homosexuals from Tel Aviv-Yafo in the gay pride parade, which will be held on Saturday, July 3, 2010, in Madrid, Spain's capital. The Israeli homosexuals who want to participate were notified that their presence was suspended due to security concerns, but the reason given here in Spain by the Federation was that Tel Aviv-Yafo's municipal authorities didn't condemn the operation carried out by the Tzahal against the so-called Gaza flotilla last week.

Antonio Póveda, president of the Federation, has stated (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks): "We can't allow that in a demonstration held in the defense of human rights, also in the defense of the murdered activists' rights, an institution which doesn't condemn those facts can participate." Póveda has also declared that Israeli associations of homosexuals are allowed to participate in the parade only if they condemn the aforementioned military operation.

A gay pride parade is supposed to defend lesbians', gays', transsexuals' and bisexuals' rights, regardless of other issues such as the Arab-Israeli conflict. And the F.E.L.G.T.B. has decided to veto Israeli homosexuals just because they're citizens of the Jewish State, which precisely is in many aspects one of the most tolerant countries on Earth towards homosexuals, and even the most one in the Middle East; but Póveda hasn't told anything about those homosexuals from Arab and muslim countries who are being subjected to persecution and repression, including death penalty.

This case reminds me Norwegian homosexual parlamentarian Anette Trettebergstuen, whose case is available in Norway, Israel and the jews (read here), a Norwegian blog which has also covered the case of the F.E.L.G.T.B.

F.E.L.G.T.B.'s attitudes towards Israeli homosexuals, forcing them to officially accept a determined ideal if they want to exercise their right to held a demonstration in the defense of their rights, also remind me Republican Senator from Wisconsin Joseph Raymond McCarthy, who was in charge of a witch-hunt against suspected communists during the 1940s and 1950s. This witch-hunt included unconstitutional measures such as making the suspects to confess their ideology, to reject communism and to swear they weren't communists, thus forcing them to accept an undesired cause in order to exercise other rights such as being free (to refuse to accept the aforementioned... "proposals" and many others used to be severely punished with imprisonment).

And as done by McCarthy himself in the past, the F.E.L.G.T.B. seems to be exclusively centred on Jews.

David Segarra interacts with El Mundo's readers.

David Segarra is a Spanish journalist who was one of the three Spaniards on board the Mavi Marmara, the ship which was boarded by the Tzahal last week. While writing this, he's interacting with El Mundo's readers through its Internet website. Of course, his intervention consists of accusing Israel and exonerating the activists; he has been answering questions for the last hour (at the moment I'm writing this).

The hypocrisy he's showing is evident. For example, in the question #21, a reader asks him about the violence in Congo, where more than 5,000,000 people have been killed in the last years. The reader writes that activists usually denounce the violence suffered by the Palestinians while ignoring millions of people being slaughtered in other parts of the world. Segarra's answer? All the human beings are equal and they deserve the same attention; but neither Segarra himself nor the activists are leading a humanitarian campaign in favour of the Congolese people.

Segarra's eyewitness account was confronted with this question (#6, translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"Hello, David. You affirm that the Israelis began to shoot before the boarding and that they killed at least two people from the helicopters. However, autopsies say that all of the deads were killed by 9mm pistol shots at point-blank range. Doesn't this contradict your testimony? Do you have visual proofs which support your version?"

Segarra's answer began with this statements:

"Those who have visual evidencies are they. The facts: 10 deads, 40 wounded, they were journalists and voluntary workers. On the Israeli side, four wounded, none of them being in danger."

Segarra continues his answer through talking about his personal experience, telling, for example, that he and some other individuals were involved in a shooting aimed at them.

The issue here is that the available images show: activists singing anti-Semitic songs; an activist telling how he tried to become a martyr twice and that he is trying it for the third time; Israeli military authorities trying to prevent a violent outcome, being they answered with statements such as "Shut up, go back to Auschwitz"; activists preparing themselves to exercise violence before Israeli soldiers boarded the ship; Israeli soldiers being attacked before they began to shoot; and injured Israeli soldiers.

Of course, all of this, along with Israeli soldiers' accounts, leave every single observer with a reasonable doubt about Israeli soldiers' actions, while demonstrating the violence exercised by the activists.

Regarding the idea of the blockade and the boarding themselves, Segarra sustains they were illegal according to internaional law. Maybe the time has come to clarify that, according to the article 67 of the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea:

"Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they:

(a) are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture;".

Segarra denied that Israel allows humanitarian aid to be sent to the Gaza Strip through its border, despite all the visual evidencies showing humanitarian aid being delivered and Gaza Strip's stores and markets plenty of food and clothes.

Segarra also fails to specify the connection between the organization behind the flotilla (I.H.H.) and terrorist organizations (see here, from page 10).

Now the interview is closed. I tried to participate through asking Segarra about the violence which erupted aboard the Mavi Marmara, but I wasn't answered.

Israel's Ambassador to Spain, Raphael Schutz, speaks Spanish better than laSexta's journalists.

During the night between Sunday, May 30, and Monday, May 31, 2010, the so-called Gaza flotilla was raided by Israeli military personnel. Proximately I'll write about the issue here, but now I'll exemplify how Spanish press is capable of distorting reality.

Israel's Ambassador to Spain, Raphael Schutz, was interviewed by El Periódico de Catalunya's journalist Pilar Santos regarding the aforementioned Israeli raid. During the interview, the journalist said: "There have been nine deads." This was Schutz's answer:

"Yes, nine people have died in that act. But 155 died in a terrorist attack in India last week. Who does care? Have you heard something about it? Twenty-three Spaniards have died in the roads last weekend."

Of course, laSexta Noticias' reaction was an article in its official website under this title: "Sí, nueve personas han muerto. ¿A quién le importa?" ("Yes, nine people have died. Who does care?").

Well, it seems that laSexta Noticias' journalists have more problems trying to understand Spanish than an foreign Ambassador, in this case from Israel. Because it's evident that what Schutz tried to make clear is the hypocrisy shown by those who have been supporting Gaza flotilla's cause for the last days, including laSexta Noticias itself; because, as Schutz stated, the nine people killed aboard Mavi Marmara, almost for sure after having tried to harm Israeli soldiers' lives, are more important for those supporters than the 155 innocent people murdered in a terrorist attack in India.

And by the way, Schutz has apologized for his statements; but laSexta Noticias hasn't published anything about it yet.

Spanish media ignores Mahmoud Abbas blaming the Palestinian people for the Second Intifada and exonerating Yasser Arafat.

It's frequent for Spanish media to cite both Israeli and non-Israeli Jews criticizing Israeli attitudes, and even to interview them in order to know what they want to say. What is not so frequent is to cite and to interview those Arabs or muslims (both Palestinians and non-Palestinians) who criticize the other party (although some exceptions are made, such as Mosab Hassan Yousef, though he attracted little attention here in Spain).

One of the last examples of a Palestinian criticizing Palestinian attitudes was Mahmoud Abbas, who recently claimed that the Palestinian Second Intifada was a mistake. Apart from the fact that he blames (again) Netanyahu-led Israeli Government for the freezing of the peace process (in spite of Netanyahu's statements regarding his desire to talk face to face to Abbas, being the Palestinian leader the one who rejected this proposal), what is more surprising to me is the fact that he blames the Palestinian people for the uprising, exonerating Yasser Arafat.

But to find out about Mahmoud Abbas' statements, I had to rely on AURORA DIGITAL, an Israeli news website. Then I checked Spanish dailies El País, El Mundo, Público, ABC, La Voz de Galicia and La Vanguardia, and I couldn't find the same information.

Mahmoud Abbas' statements were made during an interview for the Egyptian television, as explained in AURORA DIGITAL's article, published on Wednesday, May 26, 2010, under the title Abás: la segunda intifada fue nuestro peor error (Abbas: the second intifada was our worst mistake). Excerpts from the article below (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, admitted that the second intifada was a great mistake by the Palestinian people.

Army's radio quoted Abbas saying in an interview for the Egyptian television channel 'Nile TV', that 'this was one of the worst mistakes of our lives. (Former Palestinian leader Yasser) Arafat didn't want the second intifida to break out, but he was unable to control it.'

'My slogan, since the second intifada broke out, was that it had to be stopped, because violence destroyes us, and in fact it did it', he said, adding that 'Arafat was pragmatic instead of an extremist'."

The article follows with accusations against Israel, statements regarding Arabs' desire for peace and accusations against Iran for distancing Hamas from al-Fatah.

Apart from the fact that Yasser Arafat was actually an extremist responsible for terrorist attacks against innocent Israelis; apart from the fact that he sought genocide against them; apart from the fact that the network of armed organizations he was leading was active in terrorist activities against innocent Israelis during the al-Aqsa Intifada; appart from the fact that during the al-Aqsa Intifida he gave speeches and made statements inciting to violence against innocent Israelis; appart from all of that and many other issues, what is surprising to me is that Abbas blames the people he is currently representing and leading, his own people, for the uprising which led to the deaths of innocent Israelis and Palestinians, freezing peace negotiations.

He said this in a public interview for the Egyptian television. And Spanish mainstream media just shut up, but those Israeli and non-Israeli Jews who criticize Israeli attitudes (govermental, military or public ones) are subjected to a more strict coverage. And do they actually pretend to be neutral when reporting about Israel? I don't think so...

Ilan Pappé joins Nabil Shaath.

Recently I criticized Nabil Shaath's statements in El País. In the same diary, Israeli historian Ilan Pappé joined Shaath in the process of Israel's demonization, writing about the 1948 Palestinian exodus, too. And his criticism is harsher than Shaath's.

Firstly, he writes that the Palestinian Nakba is still happening. In fact, his article is titled 'Nakbah' 2010, while the subtitle is: "The despossession of the Palestinian people initiated with the 1948 killings and expulsions continues today with the siege of Gaza and the 'judaization' of Jerusalem and the West Bank. All is due to a plan of 'ethnic cleansing'".

One of the paragraphs is translated as follows (as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"It has to be recognized that our task [to relate the 1948 Palestinian exodus and to try to end the oppression of the Palestinians] is not easy, mainly because of the extraordinary success obtained during that days (1948) through the manoeuvres of despossession carried out by the State of Israel when occupying the 80% of the Palestinian land, achieving the expulsion, in this way, of more than a half of the native population. Due to the magnitude of these drastic operations, those responsible can now allow themselves -and implement- all kind of genocidal policies with the ethnic cleansing as the main objective, substituting in that way the Palestinian population eliminated during the days of the Nakbah."

The article also relates acts of violence and threats against the Palestinians during that days, as well as the threats faced today by the Israeli and the Palestinian Arabs.

One of the most shocking statements is this one: "..., without forgetting as well the Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria: none of them is safe from the last Zionist push to a project initiated in 1882 and which pretends to subjugate, also through the use of force, the neighboring Arab countries."

Finally, Pappé demands the end of the Nakba and the right of return of every single Palestinian refugee, as a previous step to a just peace accord.

In order to answer Ilan Pappé's statements about the 1948 Palestinian exodus, it would be enough to read again my response to Nabil Shaath (please follow the first link provided in this article).

About Israel's administration of East Jerusalem and the siege of the Gaza Strip, please read here (at point #4) and here, respectively.

Pappé uses the word "genocide". A genocide consists of wiping off the map a racial, national, ethnic or religious group, that is, it consists of exterminating it. Claiming that the Palestinians are being exterminated by Israel doesn't make sense, taking into account that in strict demographic terms, the Palestinian and Israeli Arab populations have been clearly increasing for the last 62 years. For example, there were about 700,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948, but currently there are about 4,700,000 Palestinian refugees. If Israel actually had been committing genocide for the last 62 years, Palestinian and Israeli Arab populations would be decreasing. This was what happened with the Jews in Europe, the Armenians in the Caucasus, the tutsis in Rwanda and the indigenous peoples of North America.

It's also interesting the Pappé-alleged Israeli intention of subjugating its neighboring Arab States. If this is true, why did Israel sign peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan?

Nabil Shaath writes about the Nakba.

Nabil Shaath is a Palestinian politician. He wrote an article for Spanish daily El País under the title La 'Nakba' palestina (The Palestinian 'Nakba'), about the 1948 Palestinian exodus from those places which currently are part of Israel. The article was published on Saturday, May 15, 2010. Content of the article below (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"Today Israel celebrates 62 years since its creation, on May 15, 1948. For the Palestinians, the 62 years of the Nakba -our national and personal catastrophe, the lose of our ancestral fatherland and the dispersion in the exile of the three fourths of our people- are commemorated today. The Palestinian people still waits for Israel's recognition of its responsibility in that catastrophe and an accord to solve the conflict which is based on the International Law, including U.N.'s resolutions.

I experienced the exile in first person. On May 13, 1948, the day before the declaration of the State of Israel, my own city, Jaffa, was captured by Zionist forces. Seventy thousand christian and muslim Palestinians were forced to leave the city, the majority of them by sea, towards Gaza, Egypt and Lebanon. The majority of Jaffa's population was literally thrown into the sea and never was allowed to return. I was 10 years old.

This same reality was lived by more than 726,000 christian and muslim Palestinians who in 1948 abandoned their homes terrorized, or were expelled by force, in what was a part of the then British Mandate of Palestine, while hundreds of their compatriots were being murdered.

This pain was experienced by me, as well as I heard many other stories about pain and fight while I was growing up. During that time, and many more years, it was intended to deny our history. But today nobody can do it. Even Israeli historians like Benny Morris and Ilan Pappé have confirmed what we knew since so much time ago.

Along with the expulsion of people, 418 Palestinian villages were destroyed. Almost all of the Palestinians' properties, including those which pertained to Palestinians who managed to stay in areas which remained under exclusive Israeli control, were confiscated by the nascent State of Israel, on exclusive behalf of the Jews.

In 1952, when the Israeli Parliament passed his nationality law, Palestinian refugees were denied the option to become citizens of the new State. And aditional measures were taken to prohibit the return to our country and to our homes.

Both the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 and the following measures intended to make the displacement permament were taken contravening international law.

This situation has worsened due to the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Again, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had to leave their homes, and Israel expanded its control to the remaining 22% of our historical fatherland.

Today, the complete besiege of the Gaza Strip, the continuation of the settlements and the presence of the wall in the West Bank, East Jerusalem's isolation from its historical environment, are provoking a major Palestinian fragmentation and despossession. Clearly, the Nakba continues.

Currently there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees. They constitute the largest population of refugees in the world and the most prolonged in the time. Palestinian refugees' vulnerability, as a result of their long exile and the lack of a State, contributed to the instability in the Near East and to its insecurity, from Iraq to Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

As a Palestinian, I can't forget my nation's uprooting, which has made up my history and which has supposed a hard reality for my people. At the same time, we the Palestinians have expressed our desire to achieve a conciliation and to advance on the base of a new accord in order to recognize and to implement our rights in a just form.

In the course of the 62 years of the Palestinian Nakba, Israel's responsibility for the Palestinian people's forced displacement and despossession has been clearly recognized by many historians and International Law academicians. Palestinians' individual right to return to their homes and to decide their own destiny is proclaimed by the international community through the United Nations General Assembly's Resolution 194. But in practice the Palestinians are denied the most elemental human rights.

I deeply regret that Israel continues to ignore the Arab Peace Initiative (API) adopted by the Arab League in Beirut in March 2002. The API asks for an independent Palestinian State in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a just solution to the question of the Palestinian refugees accorded between the two parties, based on the U.N.'s Resolution 194, in exchange of the normalization of the relations with Israel and a lasting peace.

The Arab Peace Initiative has been repeatedly supported by the Arab countries. And aditionally, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which represents 57 muslim countries, has added itself to it in order to end the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This means, in practice, achieving peace between Israel and more than 1,200 million Arabs and muslims worldwide.

Peace is achieved between equals, respecting each side of the other's history and identity, as well as understanding the other's discourse. As history demonstrates, the States commit errors, yes, but they strengthen themselves when they recognize them and they apologize. The first thing is achieving the accord proposed by the Arab Peace Initiative. In the same way, it's necessary for the Palestinians to be recognized as human beings who receive the same treatment and the application of the same laws as other refugees and victims of conflicts, including their right of return and to have the freedom of choosing their future.

To achieve a lasting peace it's necessary for Israel to recognize its responsibility in the creation and prolongation of the Palestinian refugees' tragedy. This recognition is not a threat against its existence. To the contrary, when doing it, Israel, unavoidably, would prepare our respective leaders and citizens to establish peace through a political accord. In the 62nd commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba, I invite Israel to assume its responsibilities, to recognize our sufferings and our rights and to work with us in the search for peace, for the historical reconciliation and for the end of the conflict."

Firstly, Israel's creation occured on Friday, May 14, 1948 (according to the Gregorian calendar) or Iyar 5, 5708 (according to the Hebrew calendar).

Secondly, could the Nakba be interpreted as a "national" catastrophe? Until Israel's War of Independence was ended in 1949, the Palestinian Arabs didn't even consider themselves a nation. Arab Palestinian nationalism is just the result of Israel's implementation and nothing else. This has been fully demonstrated by the Palestinian Arabs themselves, who carried out the 1947 to 1948 Palestinian Civil War against the Jews as Arabs, not as Palestinians. In fact, the term "Palestinian" was used referring to the Jews and by the Jews to refer to themselves, as explained by journalist Martin Sieff in his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East; furthermore, Shaath fails to specify that their "ancestral fatherland", according to Sieff's book, was part of the Ottoman Empire during centuries, and that during this period there wasn't a widespread sense of Arab Palestinian nationhood.

Martin Sieff is editor-in-chief of United Press International's international section. He covered the Middle East during four decades, and he worked for The Washington Times, National Review, The Belfast Telegraph and The Times. He was nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

Thirdly, the 1948 Palestinian exodus was not only the result of Israel's policies. In this U.N.'s report, reasons for the Palestinian exodus are summarized as follows: "The exodus of Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion."

Furthermore, not only Israel's, but also Arabs' responsibility for the Nakba must be taken into account. Time reported on Monday, May 3, 1948, about Haifa's Arabs:

"Of the 60,000 Arabs who lived there, many had fled to safety even before the attack started. As the panicky evacuation began during the Jewish assault, the remaining thousands gathered what few belongings they could carry. Lashed on by the mortar barrage, more than a thousand men, women & children hammered at the No. 3 gate of the British-controlled port area to seek safety. Royal Marine guards finally let them on to the docks."

Also, in the same article by Time:

"The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city. More than pride and defiance was behind . the Arab orders. By withdrawing Arab workers, their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa. Jewish leaders said wishfully: 'They'll be back in a few days. Already some are returning.'"

Benny Morris is the most prominent figure in the study of the Palestinian exodus. He distinguished four main waves of Palestinian Arab refugees during the 1947 to 1948 Palestinian Civil War and 1948 to 1949 Israel's War of Independence: December, 1947 to March, 1948; April to June, 1948; July to October, 1948; and October to November, 1948. He argues that the Palestinian exodus derived from expulsion orders, military attacks and intimidation by Jewish as well as Arab troops, and from Arab fear of being victims of massacres committed by radical Jews (such as the Deir Yassin one) and dying during the clashes.

Arabs' partial responsibility for the Palestinian exodus was confirmed even by Arab sources. Khalid al-Azm, former Syrian Prime Minister, wrote in his memoirs: "We brought disaster upon one million Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave their land, their homes, their work and their industry." This position was also shared by Salah Mesbah Khalaf, also known as Abu Iyad, former member of Arafat-led al-Fatah. Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Pasha al-Said declared: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."

Current Arab leaders also expressed this position. In Mahmoud Abbas' words: "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live."

All of this demonstrates that not only Jewish and Arab expulsion orders were the main factor of the Palestinian exodus, but also the fear of the refugees, and that the resposibility for the exodus itself must be shared by both of the parties in conflict; but Shaath puts all the responsibility on Israel solely. Does it make sense when reading his own words about reconciliation through recognition of historical errors? Why doesn't he demand the respective Arabs' recognition for their involvement in the Palestinian Nakba? Furthermore, he fails to remember the treatment which Arab countries gave to the Palestinians, regarding to their national aspirations and the status of most of them as refugees, as explained here (at point #7).

Shaath writes about the Arab Peace Initiative and how Israel has ignored it. But he doesn't cite one fact: during the vote of the A.P.I., then Palestinian Prime Minister (and terrorist leader) Ismail Haniyeh didn't vote in favour of it, choosing to abstain.

Shaath also wrote about the Palestinian refugees' right of return, ignoring those Jews who were expelled or fled from their homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem prior to and during Israel's War of Independence. According to his own point of view, shouldn't be those Jews and their descendants allowed to relocate in the West Bank and East Jerusalem? He also failed to specify that after Israel's independence about 800,000 Jews were expelled or fled from their homes in Arab and muslim countries and had to seek refuge in the Jewish State.

In 1967, as he wrote, Israel fought the Six-Day War and a new wave of Palestinian refugees emerged. What he contradicts is the main cause of this wave of refugees, who fled voluntarily, as Michael B. Oren told in his book Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East.

The most prominent proof against the theory of Israeli intention to expel all the Arabs in 1948 and 1967 is the fact that there are Arabs both in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

About Israeli administration of East Jerusalem, read here (at point #4).

Israel has also allowed humanitarian aid to be sent into the Gaza Strip through its border.

Shaath counts more than 7,000,000 Palestinian refugees, adding that they're the largest population of refugees. Firstly, the U.N.R.W.A. counts 4,700,000 refugees, and not more than 7,000,000. And secondly, they're not the largest population of refugees worldwide. The partition of India in 1947 provoked the displacement of about 15,000,000 people, while more than 10,000,000 people were subjected to displacement due to the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. The number of Palestinian refugees since 1947 has been equaled by the number of Iraqi refugees since 2003 only.

It's interesting to see that only the Palestinian refugees have an agency of their own inside the United Nations...